The invention relates generally to non-contact measurement systems, and more specifically to a method and system for non-contact measurement of dimensions of a surface of a complex part.
Surface measurement of complex parts is of vital importance in manufacturing and repair industries. Typically, surface measurements are done by a contact method where the measuring device is in contact with the complex part. Alternatively, surface measurement is performed with specially fabricated gauges. Such measurement systems are typically costly, time consuming and susceptible to measurement errors. In other situations, the part may be too hot from the manufacturing process for contact based measurements. Most contact based methods usually require an unbreakable probe tip used for measurement. Such probes are usually expensive. In industries where parts are manufactured in large numbers, the number of probes used for measurements may be few in number. Thus, inspecting a large number of parts using a few probes becomes time consuming, which is undesirable.
Non-contact based measurement systems are also used for surface measurement. A problem with some non-contact based measurement systems is that they are time consuming because such methods usually employ heavy computation or a lot of data to interpret. For example, non-contact measurement systems may need to extract background information such as the fixture, noise, etc. that is also present in images containing the part to be inspected. As the manufacturing tolerances become tighter, there is a corresponding increase in the demands for metrology techniques for maintaining the tolerances. The need for quality and performance testing has become an integral part of the production or manufacturing process.
It would therefore be desirable to employ a non-contact measurement system for measuring surface dimensions of complex parts in a fast and cost-effective manner.